


this is not a love story (but love is in it)

by koizillaa



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Jean Kirstein-centric, Pre/Post Timeskip, Spoilers for Season 4, except you are infiltrated soldiers in enemy territory, getting an apartment with your friends :), hints of nicosasha, it's about the yearning, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koizillaa/pseuds/koizillaa
Summary: It’s been four years since she’s ruined him for anyone else with nothing more than a glance in his direction, and he’s never quite managed to shake the spell she’d unknowingly cast on him.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein, Sasha Blouse & Jean Kirstein & Connie Springer
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first version of this in a single sitting because I just *had* to get it out of my system, but then I regretted it after about a day and took it down to rewrite (and if you happened to stumble across it, I'm deeply sorry). As mentioned in the tags, there are spoilers for season 4. I am not a manga reader so this is just my personal interpretation based on what we're not shown in the anime.
> 
> The romance comes into this slowly in the beginning, but please bear with me - they'll come around eventually.
> 
> Title is from Jeanette Winterson's "Lighthousekeeping."

A week before they leave for Marley, they have a cookout and a bonfire. 

It’s the closest they’ve had to a party (a real party, like the ones normal teenagers have) in years, and everyone tries to make the most of it despite the uneasiness their impending mission had brought them over the past few months. They don’t have permission to drink often, so the evening makes for some _very_ interesting sights and even more embarrassing stories to tell in the morning.

Connie, for one, has a chicken struggling against his grasp and is currently trying to land a kiss on its head. Commander Hange Zoë is skipping and twirling to the cheerful beat of the music around Captain Levi, who wears a tiny, most unusual smile on his lips. 

A girl from another division - the Garrison, he thinks, from before they unified the military in the face of the Marleyan threat - has her hand wrapped coyly around Jean’s bicep, flashing him a smile that is as bright as she is pretty. 

He humors her for a few moments, toying with the idea of flirting back in his mind but never actually making a move, and then he makes Connie’s chicken debacle the pretext for excusing himself tactfully. The girl looks disappointed. She gives his arm one last squeeze before letting go.

“I don’t think she likes me very much”, Connie sways on his heels, tearfully, an angry scratch threatening to bleed right under his eye. Jean releases the bird from his friends’ hold and makes a point to keep its beak away from his face as he looks for an adequate place to set it free.

“Maybe you’ve had enough, buddy”, Jean says, then links his arm with Connie’s to keep him upright.

“But _you_ like me, don’t you, Jean? I bet you like me, horse boy. You like me very much.”

“Yeah, that’s right” he agrees, and Connie nods solemnly before losing his footing again. “But you know who likes you even more? Sasha. Let’s go find Sasha.”

“ _Sasha!_ ”, sluggishly, and Connie bares his teeth in a smile that could be either gleeful or diabolical. 

_Sasha,_ it turns out, had been busy charming the cook into allowing her to turn the snack table into her very own private tasting station. The weather on the island always makes Niccolo’s skin look a bit flushed, but the boy’s cheeks turn nearly three shades deeper of red the moment he realizes Jean is looking their way. 

It’s kind of endearing, truly, but it still takes him every effort not to roll his eyes.

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds. Sasha, I brought your friend.” Jean says, letting go of Connie once he’s sure he won’t fall on his face. He swiftly steals two meat skewers (he knows there won’t be any left by the next time he comes around) before turning to leave. “You three have fun!” 

Sasha has her mouth too stuffed with bread to speak, and Niccolo is always unsure as to how to respond appropriately, so by the time they begin to protest Jean is already long gone.

He wanders through the venue chewing absentmindedly on his meat, and maybe it’s the few sips of wine he’d had earlier, but it occurs to him suddenly just how delightful everything is in that moment. 

They still have their most difficult mission so far ahead of them, in uncharted territory no less, but for now Jean just wants to hear the music and burn this peace he hasn’t known in so long into his brain, so he can return to it for comfort on more difficult nights. 

(He doesn’t know how many more of these he’ll get.)

It’s a while before he spots Mikasa by herself near the fire. She looks solitary, which is not completely atypical for her, but there’s something about her expression that resembles melancholy, and (he doesn’t think he can blame this on the wine this time) Jean’s legs seem to move on their own accord as they carry him closer to her.

Mikasa, ever the attentive soldier, seems to notice his intent even before he can. As he bends down to sit beside her, she quirks up an eyebrow at him, and it disappears behind the darkness of her hair.

“Not in the mood for dancing tonight?” Jean rubs his cheek against his shoulder and offers her one of his skewers (the one he hadn’t bit on yet).

Mikasa gingerly accepts, and her fingers - cold, despite being near the bonfire for he suspects the entire time - brush against his with a tingly sensation he doesn’t have a name for. “I don’t dance”, she says, a little brisk.

Armin and Eren had left with the first shipment of undercover soldiers, and Mikasa has looked adrift ever since. She mostly sticks with Sasha, but their gluttonous friend had become increasingly hard to track down since she had proclaimed Niccolo a ‘food genius’. It’s nothing that hinders her performance as a fighter, or that’s even noticeable to anyone who’s not paying close attention.

Jean always pays close attention.

He chooses his next words carefully. “You know… It’s okay to enjoy yourself when they’re not around.”

She pulls her knees to her chest and presses her lips into a thin line. “I thought I was doing just fine before.”

His wince is immediate and involuntary. “Right.”

“No - I’m sorry.” Mikasa sighs audibly, and tucks her chin into her scarf. “I’m sorry. It’s just strange for me. To be here without them, I mean.”

Jean nods, and tries to smile. His voice comes out a little strangled. “I know. It’s all right. They’ll be home soon”, he says. “We’ll bring them home.”

She gives him a tentative twitch of her lips. This tiny, controlled movement, like she’s trying to not let it take over her face. It’s oddly bewitching. They slip into a fragile silence, and Jean pretends that he’s interested in the cackling of the wood before them with such intensity he must look crazy. Mikasa glances in his direction for a second, and then turns her attention back to the fire.

“I don’t know how to dance”, she says abruptly.

Jean is startled, first by her bluntness, and then by the fact that there’s something in this world that Mikasa Ackerman can’t do. The very notion of it borders on absurd, and Jean actually finds it in himself to laugh.

“Well, you’re not the only one.”

Jean points to where Connie has seized both Sasha and Niccolo by the wrists and is making them spin around in circles, aimlessly and completely off-beat. Mikasa’s face goes from confused to offended to amused, and then she joins him in his laughter, her nose scrunching up and her eyes crinkling on the sides. Jean wishes he could tone down the music so he can hear her better.

“Not me, though. I’m a great dancer”, he says, hoping to drag another smile out of her. 

It works. “For some reason, I don’t believe you.”

“You wound me, Mikasa. Sometimes I think the titan killing business was a mistake when dancing is my true calling.” He scratches the stubble on his chin. “I’m a natural talent. I could teach you, sometime.”

Mikasa tucks stray tendrils of hair behind her ear and nods. When she turns her face in his direction, he’s pretty sure this is the most genuine smile she’s ever given him, teeth and all. He's been witnessing her keep those only for Eren and Armin, and sometimes Sasha, over the past years, and it feels a bit strange to finally find himself on its receiving end. It leaves him with a fluttering sensation inside his chest - butterflies, or maybe a stroke on the way. Jean will take whichever. 

“Okay. Maybe some other time.”

Mikasa’s quiet demeanor is a stark contrast to the Garrison girl from earlier, but still Jean doesn’t think there’s anywhere else he’d rather be. He curses her in his mind. It’s been four years since she’s ruined him for anyone else with nothing more than a glance in his direction, and he’s never quite managed to shake the spell she’d unknowingly cast on him. 

She shifts in her seat, inching just a little closer to him. Jean wonders briefly if she’ll rest her head on his shoulder, and when she doesn’t, he tells himself not to read too much into it. 

“Some other time”, he echoes. 

-

It takes Jean five days on a ship to realize that he actually enjoys being out at sea.

The first day of their journey is decidedly the most nerve wrecking. Most of the new recruits had only ever seen the ocean a couple of times from the watchtowers on the bay, and between them those who had actually touched the salt water were even fewer. 

There are desperate commotions every time the ship jerks a little harder or rocks too much to one side (Jean decides to start dismissing them on the second day) despite whatever the Volunteers say in reassurance, and the newly discovered sea sickness that seemed to plague more than half of their crew wasn’t helping their case, either.

By the third night, there are still some that hang on to the handrails with bone-white knuckles, but most of the fear has dissipated. The nervous chatter dies out, making way for the restless tension that always prefaces the start of a mission, and the fourth day is marked by a stilted quietness that makes the air so brittle it could snap.

And then it’s twilight of the fifth day, and Jean is sitting on the deck with Connie, Sasha, and Mikasa when he comes to the conclusion that despite it all, travelling by ship is actually quite nice. Jean thinks he’d like to do this again some day, in an occasion in which he is not being sent as a spy on a foreign land where he could very possibly meet his end. His opinion proves to be somewhat controversial.

“Are you fucking insane”, says Floch, who hadn’t been able to keep a meal in his stomach since the day they left the shore, leaning against the mast and wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. At his side, a new recruit named Dane clings to his bucket and only glares at Jean mid-hurl.

“It’s _great",_ Connie snaps, looking a bit green himself, “if you like the stench of barf and dead fish.”

“We can’t even smell the fish up here, idiot.” Sasha swats him in the head and ducks when he tries to retaliate.

“Just wait until _you_ get stuck on kitchen duty. Though I hope the Captain knows better than to set you loose in there. We’d run out of food in a week.” He groans, “Ugh, if I have to eat just one more grass carp -”

“Quit complaining. The food is great. If you don’t want it, more for me then.” Sasha shrugs, and then she perks up. “Speaking of carps, if you get kitchen duty again any time soon there’s this lovely dish Nico always makes back home, I’m sure I can remember the recipe…” 

It becomes a ramble about how Niccolo makes such great seafood, and food in general, and how much she misses him, and his splendid, amazing, delicious food. 

Jean gets up, not bothering to excuse himself, and makes his way to the stern. The sun has almost completely set, and the clouds are sprinkled with all shades of gold and pale yellow. The colors reflect in the waves, making for one of the prettiest sights Jean has ever seen.

“They are so loud.”

Jean jerks his body in the direction of the voice and hits his elbow most ungracefully on the rail with a yelp that almost knocks him out of balance. His throat dries up right after, and he makes a noise that may or may not have been his soul trying to escape through his mouth. Mikasa blinks and her lips part a little, but thankfully she doesn’t make fun of his clumsiness.

“Sorry”, she says instead. She looks pointedly to the spot next to him, and Jean answers her silent question with a nod. He doesn’t trust his voice to come out steady just yet.

Mikasa takes a step closer, aligning her body with his, and rests her hands on the rail. Though Mikasa stands taller than most women, Jean had always been a little taller than her, even when they were fifteen and he’d just gotten his very first growth spurt. He’s grown a great deal more over the years, and standing next to her now he can easily see the top of her head. 

“I know what you meant. Earlier. About the sea.”

“You do?” Jean barely manages to keep the surprise from his tone.

“I like it here too.” Mikasa keeps her eyes on the horizon, purple-pink-blue. “I never really understood Armin when it came to his fascination with the sea. I knew it meant freedom, the world beyond the walls, but still… It’s different when you really feel it."

"Do you? Feel it, I mean."

She nods. "I think I’m starting to.”

“Yeah." He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "The first time we saw it, I remember him getting all mesmerized like he does. I just thought it was really salty,” Jean laughs. Mikasa grins. “But I think maybe I am starting to get it, too."

He inhales the salty air, the world bright orange and dark blue. "I wish we could swim."

“Is the shower in your suite not good enough for you?”

Jean knows it’s a joke, but he still recoils a bit from the thought of the tiny shower box built for someone _much_ smaller than him in the room he shares with three other men. “It gets a bit crowded in there.”

The sound she makes is nothing short of a snort. “Swimming does sound nice. But I don’t think it’s safe to do it in the open ocean.”

“We can swim when we go home.”

“Yes", she says. "If we live, we can swim when we go home.”

It pains him to end the moment on such a bittersweet note, but she’s right. If they survive what’s coming, they get to go home. There’s no turning back now. They are five days into their journey, and every single one brings them closer to Marleyan territory. Once they reach it, they will be behind enemy lines, and all they can do is fight so they can see another day. 

It’s a very old story. They have acted it out countless times. Fight, live, repeat.

The three bells signaling it's time for dinner drown out whatever words he might have wanted to say. Above them, the sky holds no memory of its bright colors. There is only darkness, and a moon that stands out like a tiny dot between the clouds. 

-

Jean and Mikasa walk together to the dining hall in silence. Connie flails his arms frantically to indicate his location, even though he’s sitting at their usual table. Sasha makes space for Mikasa next to her on the bench.

“Why do you two look so gloomy?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer before getting up for her second round of dinner.

“I caught Jean trying to take a dive in the ocean”, Mikasa says, voice even, and then she gets up and follows Sasha to the food line. Jean opens his mouth to object, but in the end he can only watch her walk away in shock.

“I hate to agree with Floch, of all people,” Connie says around a mouthful of bread he’ll probably regurgitate later, “but are you fucking _insane?_ ”

-

She doesn't join him in his skywatching the following night, or the next, but Jean's brain replays her voice like a broken record. _We can swim when we go home._

They are little words, words too small and too grim for any hope of promise, not really comforting but comforting nonetheless, and Jean hangs on to them to shield him from the biting cold of the wind and sea as the horizon swallows the sun at the edge of the world.

He wishes he could reach out and feel it, sometimes, but the distance between them stretches too great to overcome.

-

They are to be distributed in small teams of four each and spread evenly throughout the city of Liberio, Commander Hange explains in a briefing later in the week. 

They will be directed to strategically located stakeout bases, and their orders are to blend in and evaluate the area until further notice. In case they encounter a fellow soldier while out sweeping the perimeter, they must not interact. There must be no direct communication between the cells save for exceptional circumstances. The air in the mess hall feels heavy enough to crush them all.

Jean is assigned squad leader, and as the most experienced after the higher ranking officials, he gets first pick. He’s registered Sasha and Connie to his file before the Commander is even finished speaking. 

Getting Mikasa on his team is more of a struggle - someone above him in the chain of command had their mind made up about having her, but Captain Levi intercedes in Jean’s favor, arguing that assigning her to the same sector of the city as him is a waste of resources, and his input weighs more than any ordinary soldier's wishes.

Jean is glad to have his unit filled with people he’s known for years and skilled fighters he knows can count on. Mikasa seems relieved not to have to part from her friends, and though Connie whines a bit just in principle _(“How come you get to be squad leader?” “Because I’m tall, handsome and I have a beard, and because the Commander said so.” “You call those patchy pubes on your chin a beard?” “Well, it’s more hair than you have on your head.” “Shut your trap, horseface.”_ ), Jean knows they all feel the same.

It’s always good to have people you can trust to watch your back in a war.

-

Mikasa waits for him outside the Commander’s office where they had come to an agreement about her station. The Lieutenant who had gotten the short end of the stick leaves the room stomping hard, but he doesn’t try to defy his superior’s decision, and Jean gets out feeling proud of himself for having held his own against him. He’s so distracted with savoring his victory he doesn’t see her standing guard in the corner.

“Jean.” Mikasa hurries to catch up with him. “Jean!”

Luckily, Jean doesn’t trip over his own feet. He slows his pace and makes his steps smaller to match hers. “Did you need something, Mikasa?”

“I wanted to thank you”, she says.

“What in the world for?”

“For choosing me for your team. For insisting on me, I mean.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jean stops on his tracks. “We’ve been fighting together since we were kids, Mikasa. You’re my friend - and our most competent soldier. I’m not letting go of the person who has saved my ass more times than I can even remember so easily. Besides”, he glances quickly around them to make sure they are alone, “we both know that you’re the one who could actually boss those two morons around.”

She nods and lets out a laugh. “Still, thank you. It meant a lot.”

Jean just shrugs as they resume their walk. “Well, you're welcome”, he says, "but I don't think you'll be so thrilled once you realize this actually means you'll be stuck with _Sasha_ and _food rations_ for weeks."

-

His first glimpse of the battlefield is through a tiny crack in the wall of the container inside which they are transported to the industrial zone of the city.

They can’t risk being seen by the fishermen and the locals, so the squads are all loaded up and sealed in hours before they reach the harbour in Liberio. There are three other teams meant to be stationed in the same area as Jean’s, totaling sixteen people sharing the space of the vessel. Jean finds himself squished between Sasha’s back, another squad leader’s shoulder and the wall of the rear right corner, where he finds the slit on the metal that is just the right size for him to peek outside. He'd stayed up a little later the night before, speculating with his roommates on what this foreign land would look like.

The Volunteers had shown them pictures of Marleyan cities long ago, in black and white photo albums and texbooks they used to prepare for the mission, but upon seeing the real thing Jean realizes they don't nearly do it justice. Liberio is pretty, sunny and spacious, with architecture unlike anything they have inside the walls. The traffic is slow, and Jean identifies at least two different parks scattered with benches and fountains flowing with shimmering water. But as they approach the industrial sector, and, Jean supposes, the Eldian zone, the light dims and the buildings turn simpler, grayer, with an almost standardized look. 

He sees a group of children skipping rope on the sidewalk through his little gap, and suddenly there’s this intruding thought, this realization that leaves Jean cold all over despite the overwhelming heat emanating from his colleagues’ bodies: they are passing through the very streets Reiner, Annie and Bertholdt grew up in. Now their roles are reversed, and Jean is the one invading their city like burglar, like a criminal, like a smuggled bomb, a parasite biding its time to destroy them from the inside. He can't help but think of them, how they had hid among them for years playing soldier, watching them closely, waiting for the moment to strike.

Did they think of _him_ as they came for Trost? Did they think of Mikasa when they stomped over the ruins of her hometown for a second time?

The driver turns a sharp left that makes all sixteen of them bump skulls against one another, but Jean is just grateful it snaps him out of his trance. Their collective yelps die down as quickly as they started, but they leave their postures rigid with fright in their wake.

The container stops moving, starts again, and then stops. Jean thinks they should be almost at the factory where they are supposed to change into their disguises and split up. The rest of the drive is smooth and silent - the only sounds Jean hears besides the traffic are the breathing of his teammates and Sasha’s growling stomach. He feels the pressure of her weight against his knee and wonders if she was thinking about the same thing. 

_Keep your head together,_ he tells himself. _Going there won't do you any good. Focus on the damn mission_.

He stops looking through the crack.

Half an hour later, the door opens in a flash of blinding light. The soldiers, revelling in the fresh air, get out in an orderly fashion and distribute the pile of supplies evenly, before assembling the teams and meeting their respective handlers. 

Jean, Connie, Sasha and Mikasa, now dressed in scratchy Marleyan fabric, are the last group to leave the venue. By the time they are dropped off at their final destination, the night sky hangs low, and Marley has been successfully infiltrated for hours.

Hundreds of soldiers from the Island of Paradis are settled in their safehouses, hiding, watching, waiting.

The counterattack begins.


	2. Chapter 2

The apartment is a small two bedroom on the top floor of a five store building in the outskirts of Liberio. It disposes of a single bathroom, a kitchen, a small living room and an even smaller office, and every room is so dusty that Jean for once is grateful for all their years of experience with cleaning under Captain Levi’s command.

The first morning is spent mostly mopping the floors and dusting the curtains. They do an inspection of the pantry, which is thankfully stocked, their provisions being mostly canned food, dried meat, and a couple bottles of wine and hard liquor.

What’s tricky is figuring out all the labels written in Marleyan - while the spoken language sounds basically the same as how they talk in the island, save for some variations in wording and pronunciation, you would never know that from the alphabet.

Out of the four, for better or worse, Sasha is the most skilled in deciphering the words without the help of a dictionary, though they discover the spelling of _expiration date_ when she spends the better part of three days throwing up after eating some jerky of dubious quality.

This accident ends up throwing the whole team off, since they can’t take her to a hospital and they are only versed in field medicine, but while Connie oscillates wildly between laughing _you had it coming_ and scolding _if you die I'll kill you,_ Mikasa does a decent job of helping Sasha restore her health.

Jean doesn’t let it keep him from getting acquainted with the area. He watches attentively from his post by the window, observing the people and the traffic, studies the map of the city religiously. 

Their street is lively and hectic, and while it’s frustrating not to be able to determine an applicable pattern of movement, the crowd is something that will help them go unnoticed a lot easier. They agree that the apartment should never be empty, and it’s too risky for them to be out as a group, so they set up times and days for each to do a survey of the city.

Jean thinks, secretly, that Armin would be much better suited to lead a mission like this, but he tries not to dwell on it. He’d been made commanding officer on his own merit, and now was hardly the time to start doubting himself.

Still, the first time he goes out to explore, Jean feels hopelessly inadequate and, to top it all off, illiterate, because he can barely read the signs in the shops. He ends up aimlessly strolling around the neighborhood with nowhere specific to go, trying to make the most of his time and wishing their orders had been a bit less vague. 

After years of missions in which they fundamentally stared death in the face at every moment, being assigned to simply examine the environment and wander indefinitely until the Commander sent word was still somehow incredibly anxiety inducing. 

Jean makes an effort not to show it, despite it being clear that all of them feel just about the same. 

-

Maybe to cope with his own inconvenient restlessness, Jean finds himself trying to catalog all the ways their lives are still the same: 

They’ve all lived together since they were young recruits. Sasha and Connie are still dumb-and-dumber and still the only people who can make him laugh until he can’t breathe. 

The girls share the master bedroom, but Jean bunks with Connie as they always had. Connie is still a shitty roommate. Jean still wouldn’t trade him for anyone else. 

Sasha still has disgusting table manners, and her avarice with food is still infuriating to the point they behave like children at the table fighting over it. The only one who doesn’t seem to mind it is Mikasa.

Mikasa is still… well, _Mikasa_.

Aside from pretty much everything else, her being with them is the most jarring change he has yet to get used to. 

Sasha and Connie have been his best friends and a constant presence since they were sixteen, but Jean had never spent so much time around Mikasa outside of the battlefield before. It’s a kind of ridiculous, really, how hyper aware of her presence he seems to be.

Jean can tell she finds it a bit strange at first, too. Other than Eren and Armin, she’d always been closest to Sasha, and while they are all bound by their mutual respect and shared experiences, that never really extended to Connie or Jean - at least not to the same degree. 

Sasha was ecstatic to have her along and “for once not be stuck alone with rancid boys” - Jean does _not_ know who she’s referring to; he always smells like flowers, thank you very much. For the first few days Mikasa had orbited around her, looking only slightly out of place.

It doesn’t take her long to warm up to them, though, and soon once she loosens up it’s like they’ve always been a group. She’s less defensive about Connie’s (admittedly terrible) jokes about their situation, and her interactions with Jean feel less and less like an afterthought.

Once they find the kettle, hidden for some reason in the broom closet, the first thing Mikasa does is get some herbs for tea from the market. Sasha finds the taste bitter and Connie thinks tea is an old person drink, but Jean honestly loves it. He tells her so, and the next morning there is a cup waiting for him in the kitchen when he comes back from his round, still steaming hot.

(After years of experience in dealing with trapped breaths and his own racing pulse, Jean thought he’d gotten pretty damn good at keeping his heart from doing cartwheels in his chest. 

Apparently, he had overestimated his success.)

The only thing that remained from her distant behavior is the way she stared out the window almost as frequently as Jean did, her brow twisted in a frown, and her eyes always looking for something she never seemed to find. 

-

It’s extremely unrealistic to expect contact to be made within the first week on the job, but everyone seems jittery in their anticipation for any kind of news anyway. The sentiment follows them into the second week, and it lingers strongly until the third. 

By then, the four have fallen into a tentative routine: 

Jean usually gets the morning shift, so he’s the first up every day out of habit. Sasha is the second, awake by the time he gets back and always appreciative of the fact that he brought fresh bread from the bakery he found on the map just a couple of blocks away. 

She takes up the responsibility for the groceries by default, but Jean handles the money and expenses. 

Mikasa and Connie are in charge of cooking the food; Jean and Sasha get the dishes. Connie argues that Sasha should actually be the one to do it, because why the hell is she cozying up with a chef if she’s not gonna learn anything ( _He cooks, I eat_ , she shrugged matter-of-factly, _simple as that_ ), but Jean knows he enjoys it.

The first few meals suck, granted, because they haven’t had to make anything themselves since they joined the military, but once Connie (with more than just a little help from Mikasa) gets the hang of it, he turns out to be quite the decent baker. 

No one complains about quitting the canned sardines.

-

Cards with suits they have never seen before and a board setup with missing pieces turn out to be the only source of entertainment they have available other than alcohol and making cookies. The problem is: none of them know any games. 

Well, Sasha claimed she did, at first, and then she had proceeded to guide them through a match that quickly descended into madness because the rules seemed to change every few minutes. Jean had completely lost his cool when Sasha called him a sore loser and then she went irate when he called her game stupid.

Mikasa and Connie ended up having to break up the fight and then they all collectively decided to give up the cards, leaving them with the incomplete board, which at least came with instructions in the box.

However, after they vaguely decode the rules and even more vaguely outline the set-up, the game begins to make just as much sense as the last.

"You can't do that move three times in a row," Mikasa points out, leaning forward over the table.

"Now you're just nitpicking," Connie groans.

"I'm not!"

"You're just annoyed because you're losing." Sasha snorts.

"But I'm winning," Mikasa protests, reaching for a button they used as a tile.

"You mean _I'm_ winning," Jean counters.

"No, I am."

They pause and stare helplessly at the board.

"I thought whoever had the least tiles on the board was in the lead," Mikasa says.

"I thought the point was to _keep_ the most pieces on the board," Jean retorts, stopping Sasha as she raises her tile. "You can't move sideways!"

"What are you talking about? You just did!"

"I moved diagonally, remember? How else could I have captured your earring?"

"I don't know," Connie mutters suspiciously, "but I think you must have cheated."

Jean crosses his arms. "I do not cheat!"

"Okay, okay." Sasha takes a breath and cautiously pokes a tile forward. "The white pieces go on the black squares, right?"

"Okay," Mikasa says readily, hoping to avoid any further disagreements.

"Well, do they or not?"

"We can say that they do."

"Okay. And no moving sideways?"

"Unless you have the button tile!" Sasha says, snatching up a piece.

"Fine, but the earring tile means you can do anything."

"Unless it's countered by the cork.”

"Shouldn't we be writing these rules down?"

“I think we should just go back to drinking…” 

-

Jean works on his Marleyan by going through novels stashed in the office. 

It’s a miscellaneous selection that ranges from history textbooks to children’s fables. At first it’s very slow progress: he reads at most a paragraph or two without the help of a dictionary (and occasionally Sasha), and he slams the book shut out of frustration one too many times.

The first book he manages to finish tells the story of a shark who dreamed he was human and fell in love with a fisherman. It’s simple worded, silly, and filled with pictures, but he feels proud nonetheless. 

After a while, Jean can read the newspaper almost entirely by himself, and he picks it up daily. The articles reveal more about life in Marley than they could ever learn by only observing. Jean makes notes of anything that might be relevant to the mission and pins them on the wall of the office just below their map of the city.

When he feels confident enough in his skill, he gives the heavier books such as _The Tale of Helos and Tybur_ and _The Great Titan War_ a try. They paint such a disturbing picture of the island that Jean gives up before he can even finish the first chapters, but it is among them that he finds his favorite volume. It’s a thick, brown, leather bound book that has no title or identification, only an inscription on the back cover: 

_To my sun._

Inside he finds old-fashioned, handwritten love letters. They don’t mention names and there are no dates anywhere, but the paper is so yellow and brittle and the spine so dusty he figures whoever left them here must be long gone. Jean is a bit uncomfortable at first, because he sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone prying into his business after he’s dead - especially when it came to the affairs of his heart -, but he can’t seem to contain his curiosity. 

Everything is dedicated to _my sparrowling, my pale fire, my heart_. He’s never been one for poetry, but even in his rough translation, the words are so beautiful he wants to keep them close, to memorize every carefully crafted metaphor.

Jean likes this story, this tale of love, of cherishing the world with another. Even though it’s nothing he can relate to, a reality too far from the life of death and suffering he’s known so far. Maybe because of it.

Jean likes this story a lot better. 

Its only fault is that it ends, and quite abruptly so. The writing just stops halfway through the pages. It just ends.

 _There’s a piece of me missing,_ the last passage reads. _I’m coming home, and I will find you in our meadow. My once in a lifetime love, this is where I want my days and nights to take place, right beside yours._

The next page is empty.

-

Jean is so fascinated with the story he reads it well into the night, in the candle-lit living room while everybody else sleeps. 

He reads it over and over again, and every time he seems to find something he missed the last.

“... don’t you have the first round tomorrow?”

Jean slams the book shut in a fright.

Mikasa stands in the hallway, a fist rubbing the sleep from her eyes, her hair sticking up in every possible direction.

The nightdress she wears is at least three sizes too big for her, which seems to be the case with most of the clothing their benefactors had provided for them - a miscalculation that for once worked in Jean’s favor. His feet still dangle from his bunk if he lay stretched out, but at least he doesn’t have to walk around with too tight pants and too short shirts.

“Yeah.” he raises an eyebrow, a bit flustered at the sight with all those scenarios of intimacy still in his mind. “Didn’t you just come back from the last? You should be resting.”

She shrugs. “Sasha kicks in her sleep”, she says by way of explanation.

“Poor Niccolo”, Jean grimaces. “If it’s any consolation, Connie snores. Like, really loud.”

Mikasa nods. “Kindred spirits.”

It crosses his mind to joke about making them share a room, but the implications of that would be _wildly_ inappropriate, so Jean keeps his mouth shut. Mikasa steps out of the shadows and comes to lean against the windowframe, her arms hugging her body against the draft. He found Liberio to be always somewhat colder than the island, but the nights are truly frigid. 

Jean takes off his jacket so he can offer it, but she speaks before he has a chance to.

“It’s so stupid”, Mikasa says. “I’m always looking out waiting for him to show up.” She doesn’t have to tell him who she means, but she does anyway. “As if Eren would just suddenly come waltzing down the block.”

“He does have a bit of a stagger.” Mikasa doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke nearly as much as he does. Jean clears his throat. “I know it must be difficult for you. But I’m sure he’s fine. Eren can take care of himself.”

“I know.” She runs a hand through her hair almost self consciously. “I know that. I don’t mean to mother him.”

“That’s not what I said -”

“You didn’t have to,” she cuts him off. The hand comes up again, only half succeeding in smoothing down the messy strands. “Sorry.”

“We’re all stressed”, Jean concedes. He thinks he would be just as fretful if it weren’t for Sasha and Connie. “I didn’t mean to say that you mothered him. I think… Eren is really lucky to have someone like you to worry so much about him.” 

It’s not as hard as it would once have been to keep the envy from seeping into his words, but he still has to try even if just a little. His childhood jealousy has no place here. Mikasa doesn’t say anything to that, but the tension visibly dissipates from her shoulders. There’s some satisfaction in that. A small one, but he’ll take what he can get.

“Would you like some tea?” he asks, if only to break the silence.

She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I was thinking I’d get some stretching done. If that’s alright.”

“Oh.” He says, and then " _Oh_ , okay. I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be in the office if you need anything.”

Jean gets up and stuffs the book in his pocket. He’s not _embarrassed_ , per say, but he doesn’t want to have to explain what he’s reading. He leaves the jacket on the couch in case she needs it later.

“Jean!”

Mikasa is still by the window, but there’s the smallest quirk to her lips. “You should take the candle, if you’re planning to read.”

“Oh. Right.” He’s careful not to spill the molten wax on the furniture.

“Jean”, she says, a little softer this time. She reaches out, and his skin shivers in anticipation, but she doesn’t touch him. Mikasa lets her hand fall back around her elbow. “Thank you.”

Jean doesn’t get much reading done after that.

He settles on the chair and merely flips through the pages until the light burns out, then falls asleep to the fantasy of love and warmth.

-

He wakes just as the sun is just beginning to peek from behind the skyline of the city. Mikasa is curled up on the couch, his jacket clutched in her fist. Jean carefully adjusts it so she’s better tucked in before getting ready for the day.

Connie only raises an eyebrow at his tired face when he comes back, but he doesn’t ask questions. Jean washes it away in the shower, and by the time he comes out Sasha is finished with her breakfast. The jacket is returned, folded neatly into a square and placed just by his pillow.

Mikasa has already left, but there’s a warm cup of tea waiting for him at the table.


End file.
